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BU hosts PASSHE Anthropology Conference

For immediate release: Thursday, April 9, 2015

BLOOMSBURG — Prominent anthropologist Paul Stoller, with more than 30 years of field research experience, will serve as the keynote of this year’s Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Anthropology Conference at Bloomsburg University, which will feature undergraduate research on Saturday, April 25, and Sunday, April 26, from across the state system.

Stoller, professor of anthropology at West Chester University, will present “Storytelling, Religion, and the Contours of Well-Being” on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. in McCormick Center 1303. Stoller’s lecture will evoke the question of possibility. “Is this possible?” is a fundamentally existing question asked throughout the presentation, providing framework for a wide-ranging and narratively contoured discussion of ethics, embodiment, epistemology, religion, storytelling, the future, and our never-ending quest for well-being in the world. His lecture is free and open to the public.

Stoller’s extensive record of research has led him to read and think deeply about the anthropology of religion, visual anthropology, the anthropology of senses, and economic anthropology. In his most recent work, he has focused on the dynamics of wellbeing in the world. His work has resulted in the publication of 11 books, including ethnographies, biographies, memoirs as well as two novels.

In 1994, Stoller was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. In 2002, the American Anthropological Association named him the recipient of the Robert B. Textor Award for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology. During the past two years, Stoller has blogged regularly on culture, politics, media, and education for The Huffington Post. In 2013, King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden awarded him the Anders Retzius Gold Medal in recognition of his scientific contributions to anthropology.

As part of the statewide conference, undergraduate anthropology research done by students from each of the State System’s 14 universities will be recognized, including a session dedicated to student papers and presentations.

Interested attendees can register on Saturday beginning at 11:30 a.m. inside McCormick Center just prior to the official start of the conference at 12:30 p.m. Student paper and posters will be displayed and presented throughout the day until 4:30 p.m., leading up to Stoller’s keynote presentation. The conference will continue with research display and presentations on Sunday, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

This year’s conference, which rotates annually among the State System schools, will be hosted by Bloomsburg University's Department of Anthropology, the Anthropology Club, the College of Liberal Arts, and Lambda Alpha Zeta of Pennsylvania.

Bloomsburg University is one of 14 universities in Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. The university serves approximately 10,000 students, offering comprehensive programs of study in the colleges of Education, Business, Liberal Arts and Science and Technology.